Phil Foglio

The Foglios have taken their brilliant webcomic and successfully translated it to a rollicking-good-fun novel. Three of them, and more coming. Agatha, the young Spark who discovers her true identity in the first novel, appears in the Clockwork Princess as a damsel on the run, but not distressed in the slightest. When she falls in with a traveling circus, she loses herself in her work, repairing the elderly machinery they use for transport and other tasks. Along the way she bonds with the show more strange warrior princess Zeetha, and discovers new depths to her faithful cat companion, Krosp.

I won't get into details, I hate to spoil it. Basically, I love the characters, the absurdity of the clanks and the setting, and the whole tangled mess Agatha makes of her budding relationships. I really like that the authors keep her practical and grounded when it comes to those - feelings are interesting, but saving her world comes first, and any way, she wants a man who would build her a really good death ray.

Lines that made me chortle:

An injured character insists that Agatha remain with him, "Because she's got a great big monster-killing gun!'" he exclaimed. "And I want it, and her, right here!"

Agatha's comment on romance. "People keep giving me rings," she confided in him. "But I think a small death ray might be more practical."

Now that I have assured you this is well worth reading, here's the bad news. Unless, like me, you can catch the Kindle version on sale, don't bother with the ebook. It's ridiculously priced, especially for a book with proof-checking issues. I'd bought it in hardback as well, for my Junior Mad Scientist, who loved the first one and is looking forward to these. show less

I don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes on this one, as I haven't read all the way to the end, but I'll put a flag in here. This series is magnificent. For adults and teens alike. Girl Genius was steampunk before it was cool, which means WAY before it became passé. The plots, the ideas, the relationships, the insane scenarios, the madcap action and, damn it, the humor-- why don't more authors take a stab at humor? Sure, it's hard, but when you hit it, you've accomplished alchemy!-- it show more all works and I wish there was more, more, more, always more. BTW, the novelization of the graphic novel, in which text dominates, did not work for me. Stick with the comics. Edit: Yes, this graphic novel falls into the "make all bodies, male and female, of ridiculous proportions! And occasionally flash some underwear!" problem of comic books. I land on the left in that debate, but I have to forgive the Foglios. This work is just too good. One could do far worse than choose Agatha as a role model. She solves her own problems, and that is rare enough in a female character in any work of fiction in any genre that I give the fantasy-stereotype-gender-characteristic-exaggeration-art decisions a free pass. show less

I've been reading Girl Genius for about ten years and, I have to say, it only gets better. Not only is the gaslamp fantasy world consistently engaging and surprising, but the story as it stands in November 2020 is expansively empathetic. It interrogates the intersection between being in a powerful ingroup (here represented as humans) and being worthy of empathy by refusing to explicitly classify clanks, constructs, and other spark-created beings’ level of earned empathy except for show more through Agatha’s deconstruction of other sparks’ anti-construct prejudices. It's hilarious and the art is beautiful and Zeetha and Krosp always leave me smiling. show less

GIRL GENIUS: ADVENTURE! ROMANCE! MAD SCIENCE!

I've been reading GG since I ran across the first published volume about fifteen years ago and, with some breaks, I'm still reading updates as the decades-long mad science steampunk drama is published online three times a week. It feels weird to rate something so formative and so personal so low, but the truth is that it is so long, it isn't finished yet, and it would be frustrating to start reading now that it's about 20 volumes, coming out page show more by page. GG has a fantastically intricate plotline that doesn't really lend itself to the casual reading of something that has to come out slowly, piece by piece, over the course of years.

I won't bother getting into personal nitpicks, as almost all of them are just matters of personal taste. I will say this: I have been on tetherhooks about various romantic entanglements in GG for over a decade and I am on those same tetherhooks today, as I write this in 2021, wondering what it means that Agatha will be sailing with Martellus while both of her prospective suitors are sent to war far away in Europa. show less